News article at http://beauforttribune.com/?p=12170

software: AutoCAD, Illustrator, Photoshop. Final print files in Indesign, exported as PDF.

Floorplan illustration sample:

The idea was a result of an online article published this morning describing details of the racial makeup of Beaufort County public schools.

At the request of The Beaufort Tribune following the recent imposition of a fixed quota of African Americans on the new Riverview Charter School in order to reach “racial diversity”, the Beaufort County School District has released a spreadsheet showing the ethnic composition of each school in the county’s public system.

The figures, printed below, show that 95.7% of the students in one of the schools, James J. Davis Elementary, are African Americans, the most racially concentrated school in the district.

The percentage of African Americans in the county’s schools ranges from zero percent in the Daufuskie Island school to 95.7% in James J. Davis Elementary. Other high-percentage African American schools are St. Helena Elementary at 88.9% and Whale Branch Elementary at 71.8%

The percentage of whites in the county’s schools ranges from 4.5% in St. Helena Elementary to 75% in the Daufuskie Island school. Other high-percentage white schools are Coosa Elementary at 70.2% and Hilton Head High School at 61.3%. READ MORE

Original Cartoon in Beaufort Tribune

Original Story in Beaufort Tribune

What do you think? Comments welcome.

Original article can be found here on VMG’s website: lowcountrylife.vistanow.net

Enter your Submission here. Comments always welcome.

Wish I could say more about the book, but that’ll do for know Still have to get my ducks in a row.

What do you think so far? Comments welcome as always.

With the ability of social media apps to spread one’s message, strengthen a brand, or drive in web traffic, many people use Twitter like a broadcast medium. These people would encourage people to “follow” their updates, but don’t follow back, which turns Twitter into a tool for one way communication. Others view Twitter as a tool for dialog, and every time they receive a notice that a new user is following them, they follow right back. Some people have gone so far as to set up auto-follow scripts.

If you still do your following by hand, you might find that there are plenty of people you follow who don’t follow you, and vice versa. But there’s no easy way to figure out who falls into which category on Twitter. And that’s where Twitter Karma comes in. It’s a third party tool that analyzes your Twitter account and brings up a list of users you follow, users who follow you, and makes it easy to see whether you have a reciprocal or one way relationship with each.

You’ll need to give Twitter Karma your username and password to let it do its stuff. But the same can be said for most Twitter desktop applications, so you’re always taking a leap of faith when you decide to trust anybody that’s not Twitter with your login information.

Comments, or other software / Twitter apps you’ve found useful?
Click here to return to DeanCowart.com

I created this to promote the Palmetto Blended™ brand, as I hope to soon launch a line of Carolina Tshirts, Clothing, Accessories and Gifts. Why haven’t I done this already you may ask?

Well, I wanted to first get the App going to build up a little momentum. I also wanted to submit the website to several directories in hopes for Google to start indexing. Once the products are up, we’ll be ready to rock out. We’ve gotten a good response so far even without them, lots of people have signed up for the newsletter which will keep folks updated once a month. Also great interest in a free decals, and the carolina girl monthly competitions.

We’re also looking into building relationships with SC businesses that specialize in handmade products right from the Palmetto State! We’ve got some great products on board, so I’ll be sure to keep you posted when it’s all up and going on the website.

If you know of any great SC locations (ie. restaurants, clubs, shops, etc.) please submit them to be added on our SC Hotspots Page. As we’ll be creating a great resource for all Palmetto Blended fans.

Click here to check out the gift app or here to return to my blog page.

State Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers is urging all South Carolinians to eat more products grown in the state and says since they are local, they are fresher and better tasting.
Currently only about 6 percent of the food consumed by South Carolinians is grown in the state.

Ever stopped by those roadside stands and picked up fresh tomatos - they’re the best!

Where to Shop: http://www.certifiedscgrown.com/

The Website: http://palmettovore.org/

Comment on Dean’s website: http://deancowart.com/are-you-a-palmettovore

I realized how much I enjoy getting out and visiting places like this. I have no clue about camera settings, lighting, perspective, etc. but I have fun and do what I can. I didn’t photoshop any of these pictures - but now that they’re on the website I wish I had. However, they are already uploaded to my Picasa web album, and well, I don’t really have the time right now. Eventually, I may fix them up.

Here are the locations/backgrounds we visited:

• Freemont Fort - Saint Helena Island (Lands End)
• Woods Memorial Bridge - Downtown Beaufort
• Beaufort National Cemetery - Boundary Street, Downtown Beaufort
• Canon overlooking Beaufort River - Downtown Beaufort
• Waterfront Park - Downtown Beaufort
• Johnson Creek Tavern (JCT’s) - Hunting Island, Beaufort
• Old Sheldon Church - Sheldon (between Yemassee and Beaufort)

Have you ever been to any of these places? Beautiful.

With so many different social media apps out there it gets pretty hard to manage everything. There’s a quickly growing niche for software companies to develop programs that help users manage their accounts.

Lately, I’ve been tossing around the idea of how I should manage my Twitter accounts. Should I just join them together? Maybe copy and past each post after logging in and out of each? Just the thought of this gives me a headache. So it was very relieving to find a program out there that does this for me!

I highly recommend checking out HootSuite - it’s still in it’s beta stage, but looks very promising. Though I’ve been using TweetDeck for a while now (which is  agreat way to keep track of posts and users), it doesn’t give you the option to see all of your accounts.

Has anyone had any experience with Hootsuite, or any other similar product? I’d like to hear about it..